alienator

As a Fairly new golfer that's progressing nicely (played about 18 months went from shooting 120+ scores to average score 85 for the past month with low round of 80) here is some of my advice for brand new golfers. Ive been meaning to make a youtube video of this because frankly I think golfers that have been playing a while have kind of forgotten some of the struggles of a new golfer because I know I am not the only one to go through these. 1. Dont fall for the advertising hype. Ive bought and tried so many clubs with the thought it would make me better because this club is more "forgiving" than that club ect. Luckily for me Im lefty and gear can be had very cheap on ebay or I could have bought a house with all the crap I have tried. All clubs are so close in line anymore there really is not much of an improvement from one to the next withing reason. Now a 15 year old driver vs a brand new one there will be differences but a 5 year old vs a new one, you wont notice no matter what people tell you. Im not saying gear doesnt make any difference but just it doesnt make "that much" difference, so spend your money on lessons and green fees not new gear. 2. Dont wait too long to take a lesson. The longer you wait the more bad habits you will have to fix. Sure you can play and play to great standards without ever taking a lesson, but you can also improve your swing more in one hour long lesson that you can in an entire year of trying it on your own, TRUST ME on this one haha. Ive watched hundreds of hours of youtube videos trying to fix this and that and a good instructor made such a huge difference in just three lessons I seriously dropped nearly 20 strokes in less than a month. I only wish I had taken a lesson sooner because it made the game soo much easier. 3. Dont swing too hard. The golf swing is a nice fluid motion, when you really try to swing hard you tense up and actually swing slower, keep yourself nice and loose and free flowing. 4. This goes along with number 3 and this was my AHA moment, I seriously went from hitting 10-15% greens in reg to 40-50% overnight by just doing this. Hold the club nice and loose through the entire swing. I like to feel like its going to fall out of my hand almost on my backswing because you will grip it tighter on the downswing anyways but that way its still a loose maneuverable swing. Loose hands allow the clubface to close and work properly and help gain a lot of swing speed and momentum. 5. Take half back swings. Take the club halfway back and really concentrate on contact and finishing on the toe of your trail heel. A lot of coaches think that one of the biggest things amateurs mess up is taking too long of a backswing and I believe its true. You can be in perfect position and the take the club back just a bit too far and knock everything out of position. 6. Dont get caught up in distance it will come, I hit every club I had about 100 yards when I started 9iron through driver, they gradually started to spread out in distance over the next couple of months. 7. Everything is opposite. It seemed like to me every time I thought something was happening for this reason I would find out it was completely opposite of what I though, this will sound funny until you have been playing a bit and fix a few things and you will know exactly what I mean and it will make learning things from there on out a lot faster. 8. The most important one of all! Dont think of anything above or anything else for that matter when you are hitting the ball. Your brain cannot think about all kinds of swing thoughts in the short time you are taking a swing. You cannot be consistent while thinking about anything, the only way to have a consistent swing is to think about nothing. When you practice swing you can think about anything you want but when its time to hit the ball just clear your mind of all thoughts, relax and swing and let your subconscious do the work. If you find this difficult to do then simply pick one thing to work on and only think about that one thing, if you dont you will over think it and never get anywhere. Once you fix that one issue move on and try the next. A good trick to keep a free mind and a relaxed body is to take a tee and put it between your front bottom and top teeth. Concentrate on not biting down on the tee through your entire swing. That will free your mind to swing and will keep your body from tensing up as well. Thats all I can think of at the moment, I dont think any of that advice is too advanced for a beginner and if any of it doesnt make sense it will at some point real soon. If you turn out to enjoy the game 1/2 as much as I have you better prapare for other areas of your life to suffer haha.

Had some amazing weather for this time of year and was able to get out and play three days in a row. On Friday I played with some friends that play the blues so I shot with them, I usually play from the whites as my average drive is about 190-200 so it makes it worth playing. I found it rather difficult to score because I was over 200 out on my second shot on par 4s a lot of the time and had to lay up. I even had to hit driver on two par threes and one I couldnt even get to the green with driver haha. The good news was that I lost zero balls on a relatively tough course for my area where I generally go through at least half a dozen. I had several up and downs, and a handful of one putts. This along with the better iron play I am getting from practicing with my skytrak resulted in me shooting an even 90. This might not sound like much but before I was averaging high 90s at this course from the whites so I was ecstatic. On saturday I met my dad to play the same course. hes 65 and we got paired up with another father and son and they all were playing the whites so I played the whites then. The great putting and short game continued as did my decent drives and iron play. I had one blow out hole where I shot an 8 on a par four, I had a bad tee shot and got frustrated and let it get the better of me but at least I left it at that hole. I managed to back to back birdie the next two and I have never back to back birdied ever. Finished the round with an 85 +13 which was my best round to date as far as shots over par, Ive had a lower score but it was also on a par66 short course with tons of par threes and I was +16. Sunday I met some other friends for another round at the same course. Had what I felt was just a so so day. Shot a ball off the very first tee into a red hazard on a par 5 and still managed to par it from the Blues. Putting and short game continued to be good. I had two holes where I stubbed chips causing me to double chip. Had a blowout hole as well where a very long par 5 just got the better of me with the red hazards and got an 8. Still managed to Finnish with a 91 from the blues. All in all I either had the best three days in a row ever or all this work I am doing is finally paying off. I now cant wait for good steady weather so I can get out there and see what I can really do. I have started for the first time thinking of my target instead of my swing because I feel confident enough to just trust it and it seems to be doing me wonders. I know I can easiy shave 5 more strokes just by getting my concentration in line. Now if I could just get some distance off the tee who knows what I could do. I have been working on that and managed to get some 135mph ball speeds and 215-230 carries when I really go at it, I just dont feel I can do that on the course. They seem to be playable on the simulator but 1 out of 5 can go wherever it wants hahaha.

I do not have it. I wasn't aware it was available yet

I can already see improvements with just the few weeks I have had the skytrak. I got out and played a few rounds in the nice weather last weekend. My driving was absolutely aweful but it was a hook I was fighting and not a slice so it was somewhat a victory. Even fighting the terrible drives I still managed to par some holes and get a birdie because my iron and wedge play was so much improved. This is all due to practicing with the skytrak and working on getting my path from the inside. The only bad iron shots I had were ones that I just didnt get the club face closed and they were a slight push instead of a draw. For someone that has been fighting a slice since I started this was awesome and the misses were just like 5 yards not 30. Here are my approach shots from 100-125yards. one is my all time and the other is the three rounds I got in this weekend. Id say that's an improvement, can't wait to practice some more but im giving my back a little rest for a few days as I played 3 days in a row.

My tip would be Dont fall into the consumer hogwash trap! Stop buying equipment to make you better and spend that money on lessons, all equipment is created pretty equal and the only real difference is feel. Sure there are different levels of gear like players vs beginners but pretty much all game improvement irons will play close enough to the same that it won't change your score any. I wasted the first year and half of my golfing career thinking different clubs were going to help my game and they never made any difference and I went through several sets of irons and a dozen drivers and lost 20-30% of the money I spent on them in resale. Id guess im out at least 1000$ at this point just trying out different gear and could have just spent it on lessons.

I will surely try that drill out as what you are saying completely makes sense and you were able to put into words a feeling I was having and just couldnt pinpoint.

You could be on to something with the steering. I have had issues with thins and fats and I felt it really destroyed my ability to score and have made it one of my priorities to fix. I played baseball, basketball and ran track in high school and was very good at them. Lots of home runs, held a school record in the 200 until just three years ago(I was a sprinter), but then again that was 22 years ago, maybe I just am slow haha. I wonder if the Overspeed training I have read about would help in my case. I don't want to become one of these guys that is on a quest for speed and that's it. Honestly accuracy for me would be my main goal. I do find however that my distance, compared to my playing partners that play at a higher level than me, is a lot shorter. They hit 9irons and wedges into greens that I hit 5irons and hybrids into. I was standing across the fairway from a playing partner and he's hitting a 7iron and I had my 3wood and we were withing 5 yards of the same distance from the green and both hit the green.

Ok I need some help here. I got my skytrak and have been using it for a few days now. I know the clubhead speed is estimated based off ball speed but man it seems low. My 7 iron swing speed is averaging 70-74mph, with ball speed averaging 95ish. I know swing speed is more about technique and finesse but I need to figure that out because I work a pretty physical job and am in pretty good shape and would consider myself to be fairly strong. I wouldn't go out and win any strongman or muscle building competitions but when people need to move something heavy like a piano I am the one they call if you know what I am saying. Clearly I am missing something fundamentally at this point, I wouldn't think I should still be seeing 195-210 as my average driving distance.

Got my skytrak today and learned a new lesson. If you hit about 300 balls after a couple hundred no matter how hard you try you can't hit even at 75% of what you did when you started. Seriously though this thing is awesome, I hit soo many balls trying everything out I wore myself out. I haven't done that since I started golfing. I can see this is going to help me out a lot. Trying to do the steep backswing shallow downswing drill to swing more from the inside the skytrak showed me when I got the clubface closed and when I didn't and it really gave me a feel for what I need to do to hit a draw instead of a push fade. It helped me learn I have a pretty good swing path its face control I really need to work on,

Skytrak is on its way!!

That's the fitting software for accusport vector pro. Can't wait to get a skytrak cause the vector is so touchy to set up and doesn't seem to be that accurate

So I have been working on taking the club back a little steeper and droping in under on the way back down, the opposite of what I was doing as suggested. The weather has been terrible so I have only been able to hit in my garage so I really cant tell how good the flight is but it "feels" better. Please excuse the video quality as it was inside my garage. I am trying to over exaggerate the move so it sticks when I am not thinking about it. I also captured a face on video while I was practicing.

iPhone 6+ I've been very pleased with the 240fps slow mo video it takes. It was a cold day, about 42 degrees so I was wearing all black to soak up some sun to keep warm I know that's not ideal for analyzing nor is the sun position but I wasn't considering posting the videos anywhere when I took them just for personal use. I'll try to get some better ones up as soon as weather permits.

Thanks! I will say those at my best rounds of best case scenario playing with my dad so I was very comfortable and it was just my day both times. My next best round was an 86 at the same course and my average round at that course is 89-92 as I play it the most. I'm lucky to have 20 nice courses within an hour of my house here. I've watched my scores slowly drop from breaking 100 my first time this spring over the summer to consistently low 90s with the occasional 88-89 now. Mid say all aspects of my game can use work and I spread my practice around among them. My plan next season is to really focus on my short game while keeping my tee and approach shots at least as good as they are now. I almost always miss the green with any iron longer than a nine, not by much it might only be a couple feet but I find myself chipping on at least 14 holes per round. Some days I follow those chips with a one putt and some days it's a 2 putt. While putting is not yet my strong suit I think it's more green reading than anything because I rarely three putt. I've gone five and six rounds without a three putt my lag putting is on point. Problem is short of the lucky long one I get once a round I usually two putt anything over 4-6 feet. Oh one thing I forgot to mention Kevin. Get yourself a game golf if you haven't already. It by far is the best investment I have made in my game. It really putts things into perspective and points out your misses even if you think you know them you will still learn from it. It's very helpful for real scenario club distances also. You can get the original ones on eBay now new for 100$ if you keep your eye out. I always knew I played a slice/fade and I'm a lefty so missed left a lot. It really wasn't until I saw all my shots on game golf that I realized hey dummy just aim a little more right. As stupid as that sounds I think it took 5 stokes easily off my game instantly.